Big Five autonomy could kill CFB's small conferences

The Aztecs could survive the food rule, but could they compete against cost-of-attendance stipends?

Michael Bennett #63 of the Ohio State Buckeyes sacks quarterback Quinn Kaehler #18 of the San Diego State Aztecs and causes a fumble in the second quarter that Bennett recovered.
— Jamie Sabau/Getty Images

Michael Bennett #63 of the Ohio State Buckeyes sacks quarterback Quinn Kaehler #18 of the San Diego State Aztecs and causes a fumble in the second quarter that Bennett recovered.
/ Jamie Sabau/Getty Images

Can the Aztecs, who currently feed their players three times a week in season, really compete with that?

San Diego State football coach Rocky Long shrugs casually, unperturbed.

To Long, the new NCAA rule allowing schools to provide athletes with unlimited meals and snacks doesn’t change anything. He rebuts the suggestion this puts the Aztecs at a recruiting disadvantage vis-a-vis the Pac-12’s USC, UCLA and Oregon, all of which have the resources to maximize privileges under the new rule.

“They already have huge advantages anyway, this one is not going to make any difference,” he says. “They get $20 million a year in TV revenue, we get $1.3 million. That’s a heck of an advantage too. Those guys aren’t getting any more advantages than they already have. I don’t think it changes anything.”

But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. The gulf between the haves and have-nots in college football threatened to widen seismically last week when the NCAA’s Division I Board of Directors endorsed changes to their governance model that includes allowing the Big Five conferences increased autonomy to make policy decisions.

Long isn't convinced the proposal will pass.

“If they go by the way the NCAA has voted in the past, it won’t,” Long said. “I think the Big Five is putting pressure on the NCAA, saying, ‘We’re going to make our own organization unless you give us what we want.’"

Nothing is final until the board’s next meeting in August, yet at this point, I see autonomy as practically a foregone conclusion. The NCAA has stopped trying to enforce competitive balance, and instead given in to the notion that member schools should be allowed to provide as much for its student-athletes as they can afford to.

Benefits, schmenefits. The Aztecs’ feisty, blue collar coach is not one to cave in the face of adversity.

“We’ve got to be happy with what we’ve got, not worry about what they’ve got, and still try to whup ‘em,” he says.

To a point, he’s right. Even though SDSU and Alabama are both FBS programs, no one is under any illusion that they compete on the same level.

But if the Big Five get the autonomy they desire in August, one of their first moves will be to provide their athletes with full cost-of-attendance stipends.

That could be the knockout punch that ends any delusions of parity or upwards mobility the Aztecs and their less privileged brethren might harbor.

Even Long is wary of that prospect – “If they start handing out cash money, then it’s unfair,” he says.

The Mountain West hasn’t made any decisions on cost of attendance stipends even though Commissioner Craig Thompson told ESPN this week that he believes each school should have the right to dole out athlete benefits based on what it can afford.

In an interview with CBS Sports, however, American Athletic Conference Commissioner Mike Aresco said his conference has already decided to support full cost of attendance.

Of course they have. The AAC is trying to keep up with the Joneses. And you can expect some programs in the Mountain West – Boise State, for one -- to do the same.

But as the schism between the haves and have-nots continues to widen, how long can these fringe programs really hold on before the Big Five pull away so far that the smaller conferences end up playing a souped-up version of FCS football?